Past

2017

Art history begins with animals. This exhibition features animals in the art of Old Masters and
contemporary artists. With works by
Roelant Savery,
Frans Snijders &
Jacob Jordaens next to works by artists like
Koen Vanmechelen,
Wim Delvoye &
Stephan Vanfleteren.

From 2 July 2017 until 1 October 2017 at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens in Deurle.

Within the series “private collections and exhibitions”, MDD presents in 2017 the modern art
collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) which was put together by chief curator
Walther Vanbeselaere between 1948 and 1973.

The exhibition will show art by
Henri De Braekeleer,
James Ensor,
Rik Wouters,
Jakob Smits,
Constant Permeke,
Gust De Smet and
Jean Brusselmans.

Great art needs no explanation in order to touch us and even change us. Some works of art leave
observers bewildered; others allow them to 'see' from a different perspective. Dancers in the
exhibition are guides of sensibility for the observer; they reinforce the total experience.

In the 16th century a new genre of painting arose: the landscape. Artists initially painted
landscapes as backdrops for biblical or mythological scenes. Gradually, they developed infinite
variations on the theme, with cityscapes, mountain views, panoramas, depictions of hell and
seascapes becoming subjects in their own right. This exhibition includes works by
Joachim Patinir,
Pieter Bruegel I en
Peter Paul Rubens.
Travel by video artist
David Claerbout will be featured as a contemporary counterpart.

A collaboration with the Rockox House and the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Dresden.

From 10 March 2017 until 2 July 2017 at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in
Brussels

For the first time, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts
of Antwerp bring together in one exhibition the most important collection of works by the
illustrious Belgian artist of the early 20thcentury. A prominent figure in Brabant’s Fauvism,
Rik Wouters brought us brilliant and colorful art.

Though
Jan Van Beers (1852-1927) has gone down in history as a painter, during his
lifetime this artist from Lier was best known as an ambitious society figure. Realistic
details characterize his work, which sometimes looks photographic, even to the extent that Van
Beers was suspected of copying photographs and also of painting over them. Van Beers took his
adversaries to court and had his work examined by experts. The outcome was inconclusive.

From 26 August to 11 December 2016 at Museum Hof van Busleyden in Mechelen.

The
Mad Maiden is a well-known work by
Rik Wouters, whose roots lie in Mechelen, and symbolises the connection between
the visual arts, movement and dance.On the occasion of the centenary of the death of Wouters in
2016, Museums & Heritage Mechelen and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp will join forces
again for this unique exhibition.

2015

Power Flower. Floral Still Lifes in the Netherlands

From 28 November 2015 to 28 March 2016

The flourishing interest in the botanical world and the burgeoning fondness for things natural
prompted early 17th century artists to regard bouquets of flowers as a self-contained motif.
Jan Brueghel,
Jan Davidsz. De Heem,
Osias Beert,
Daniël Seghers,
Rachel Ruysch are just some of the many artists on proud floral display at this
most sweet-scented of exhibitions.

Saint³. Force of habit. Jimmy Kets in Bruegel Land

From 3 April 2015 to 6 March 2016

The year-long exhibition entitled
Saint³. Force of Habit looked at religious traditions such as processions, kermises and
pilgrimages in works from the collections of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) and the
Municipal Museums Lier (Stedelijke Musea Lier). Photographer Jimmy Kets supplemented this
presentation with reportages of surviving traditions relating to saints.

For the last time
The Moderns were the guests of the Koningin Fabiolazaal. For the final exhibition we asked
40 well-known and lesser-known Flemings to choose their favourite work of art from the KMSKA's and
Province of Antwerp's nineteenth and twentieth-century collections. We also wanted to know why they
chose that one particular work. The result is a varied and exciting selection, a miscellany of
colourful stories.

Petrus Alamire. Polyphony in the Picture

From 19 August 2015 to 22 november 2015

The recently restored Gothic Cathedral of Our Lady will host an exhibition where unique
illuminated music manuscripts and masterpieces of Flemish primitives will converge, embedded in a
digital multimedia world.

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) possesses an attractive collection of French art.
In
Tour de France, the Province of Antwerp and KMSKA showcased sixty of the best and most
interesting nineteenth and twentieth-century pieces from the French collection.

Abraham Ortelius, under the spell of classical antiquity

From 24 April to 16 August 2015

As part of
The Golden Cabinet, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and the Rockox House Museum are
organizing a number of small-scale exhibitions.
Abraham Ortelius, under the spell of classical antiquity was the fourth such exhibition in
the series. Ortelius was a geographer and a friend of
Nicolaas Rockox. He is generally recognised as having created the first modern
atlas. This exhibition included a range of historical maps together with some printed works showing
Ortelius’s reconstructions. Visitors were able to follow how he collected his knowledge and then
visualised it in map book form.

2014

High Horizon. Bruegel Land, Early 21st Century

From 26 April 2014 to 19 March 2015

An exhibition project centred on the universal visual idiom of
Pieter Bruegel, his direct followers, and contemporary artists as chroniclers of
their ages. The work of such present-day artists as
Philip Aguirre y Otegui,
Kati Heck,
Rinus Van de Velde and
Ria Pacquée reactivated and contemporised the historical scenes of Bruegel and his
artistic heirs.

The Parrot. t' Cierlijk schoon van haare veren*

From 8 November 2014 until 22 February 2015

As part of
The Golden Cabinet season, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) and the Rockox
House Museum are organising a number of small-scale exhibitions.
The Parrot is the third such exhibition in the series. Following the stunning restoration
of the painting
The Holy family with parrot by
Rubens (KMSKA), a work that has been given pride of place in
The Golden Cabinet exhibition, we are turning our attention to the parrot in the pictorial
art of the 16th and 17th centuries.

24 September 2011 - 31 December 2014 During the renovation of KMSKA, the Museum's extensive
Rik Wouters collection was put on display in Mechelen, the town where the artist
was born, for a couple of years. The venue of the exhibition
Rik Wouters. Highlights is Schepenhuis Museum, was temporarily transformed into a Rik
Wouters museum.

As the 20th century progressed, there were artists who maintained that trueness to nature was
the best approach to capturing the beauty of the world. This exhibition featured work by
Gustave Van de Woestyne,
Henry van Straten,
Georg Grosz,
Carel Willink,
Raoul Hynkes and
Pyke Koch. The selection of work from the KMSKA collection will be supplemented
with loans from Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, including pieces by
Charley Toorop,
Gino Severini and
Wim Schuhmacher.

The KMSKA exhibition
The MODERNS. Duos ran in the latter part of 2013 at Koningin Fabiolazaal in Antwerp. The
displays had been arranged by curators from KMSKA and the Province of Antwerp. However, this was
just one way of showing the items to the public. The museum’s youth crew Jongbloed! presented its
take on the original exhibition.

Bruegel Land. Focus on Romanticism. Joseph Lies

From 28 March 2013 to 14 April 2014

For a whole year, the special focus in the Bruegel Land exhibition is on a selection of ten
Romantic paintings by
Joseph Lies (1821 – 1865).

From Patinir to Ribera. St Jerome in Words and Images

From 18 January 2014 until 13 April 2014

Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s picture of
Saint Jerome occupied a place of honour in Rockox’s art gallery or groote saleth and is
currently the only work from Rockox’s original collection that is in situ in the museum that was
his house. This second small-scale exhibition within the context of
The Golden Cabinet attempts to determine St. Jerome’s place in the pictorial art of the
Renaissance and the Baroque in Western Europe.

2013

Fashion designer
Walter Van Beirendonck and museum curator
Paul Huvenne are preparing an exhibition in MAS | Museum aan de Stroom in which
they will review some of the artistic highlights of the amazing history of Antwerp's Academy.

For this 5th edition in the series of
The MODERNS, we have made a selection of the finest pieces in the art collection of the
Province, which for most of the time remains hidden to the public. In this show, the selected
pieces enter into a dialogue with paintings, sculptures, drawings and collages from KMSKA’s own
holdings.

The fourth exhibition in the series on the modern art collection of KMSKA showed a selection of
works that marked a radical change of direction in artistic production and in the museum’s
collection policy.

Breugel Land. Fun and Fracas

29 March 2012 - 28 March 2013

Nine months into
Bruegel Land, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and the Municipal Museums of Lier are
presenting the first in a series of focus exhibitions.
Fun and Fracas shows a selection of paintings that runs the gamut of leisure behaviour:
from merrymaking and playing to drinking and brawling.

The MODERNS. Permeke & Friends

15 September 2012 - 24 February 2013

The third exhibition in the series on KMSKA’s collection of modern art focuses on the Flemish
pioneers of Expressionism.

2012

Masterpieces in the MAS. Five centuries of images in Antwerp

17 May 2011 – 30 December 2012
Masterpieces in the MAS. Five centuries of images in Antwerp is the first temporary
exhibition of the new Museum aan de Stroom. It shows masterpieces from the Royal Museum of Fine
Arts (KMSKA),
M HKA and Museum Plantin-Moretus/Prints Room.

The MODERNS. Art from the Netherlands

28 January 2012 - 26 August 2012

The second exhibition in the series highlighting KMSKA’s collection of modern art focused on
Dutch art from the 19th and 20th centuries. Once again, the venue is Koningin Fabiolazaal in the
centre of Antwerp.

Rubens revealed. Victory on a Roll. Oil Sketch for the
Triumphal Chariot of Kallo

11 February 2012 - 13 May 2012 In the spring of 2012, the Rubens project team is presenting its latest research results at
the Rockox House Museum in Antwerp.

2011

The MODERNS. Highlights from the Royal Museum

29 April 2011 - 8 January 2012 The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp had not even closed its doors for renovation yet, when
it opened a new exhibition in the Koningin Fabiolazaal.

Museums in the 21st Century: Concepts Projects Buildings

29 January 2011 - 30 April 2011 An exhibition that highlighted the most significant trends in contemporary museum
architecture in the empty building of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp.

2010

Anselm Kiefer

23 October 2010 - 23 January 2010
The exhibition has been extended until 27 March 2011.
The Antwerp City Museums, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) and the
Antwerp Museum of Modern Art (M HKA) worked together on a unique exhibition featuring
contemporary artist
Anselm Kiefer.

Ensor revealed

7 October 2010 - 13 February 2011
Following the 150th anniversary of Belgian artist
James Ensor, ING Belgium, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) and the
Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels (BOZAR) joined forces to shed new light on the work of the Ostend
painter at the espace culturel ING in Brussels.

Closing Time

24 April 2010 - 3 October 2010 Contemporary artist
Jan Vanriet set out a course in the permanent collection of the Royal Museum
of Fine Arts Antwerp.

Wereldbeeld

28 April 2010 - 25 July 2010 Levanto, a social enterprise located in Antwerp, asked three photographers,
Lieve Blancquaert,
Koen Broos and
Zaza Bertrand, to portray its employees.

Rubens Revealed:
La Furia del Pennello

13 February 2010 - 4 April 2010 During the third edition of
Rubens Revealed the researchers of the Rubens project focused on
Rubens'fury of the brush.

Preview: Work on Paper (2009) by Koen van den Broek

22 January 2010 - 28 February 2010 Contemporary artist
Koen van den Broek presented his work on paper for the very first time.

2009

Jef Geys: Villa Wintermans

4 December 2009 - 17 January 2010 In 2008
Jef Geys was awarded the Provincial Prize of Plastic Arts to celebrate his career.
A good reason for the Province of Antwerp, M HKA and the KMSKA to organise an exhibition that
focused on Geys' work.

In the footsteps of Bartók. Lajos Vajda and Hungarian Surrealism

17 October 2009 - 17 January 2010 An exhibition of the works of the Hungarian artist
Lajos Vajda.

Marcel Maeyer

3 October 2009 - 29 November 2009 Former conservator Marcel Maeyer presented his more recent work in the permanent collection
of the KMSKA.

Goya, Redon, Ensor. Grotesque Paintings and Drawings

14 March 2009 - 14 June 2009 A unique exhibition on the grotesque works in the oeuvres of
Francisco de Goya,
Odilon Redon and
James Ensor.

2008

Rubens Revealed:
Adoration of the Magi

29 November 2008 - 1 March 2009 During this second edition of
Rubens Revealed the staff members of the Rubens project conducted a thorough study on
The Adoration of the Magi, one of the museum's showpieces.

Heads on Shoulders. Portrait Busts in the Low Countries 1600 1800

12 September 2008 - 14 December 2008 In the autumn of 2008 the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp was under the spell of portrait
busts.

Jan Cox: Living One's Art

15 March 2008 - 15 June 2008
The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp sketched a profile of Belgian artist
Jan Cox.

2007

Rubens Revealed:
The Prodigal Son

1 December 2007 - 2 March 2008 During the first edition of
Rubens Revealed the researchers focused on the different stages of the genesis of
Rubens' painting
The Prodigal Son.

Early-Netherlandish Painters, the Finest Diptychs

3 March 2007 - 27 May 2007 A unique exhibition that travelled form the National Gallery of Art in Washington to the
Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp.

2006

Gorge(l)

7 October 2006 - 7 January 2007 An exhibition on the oppressive and relieving intensity of art.

Jan Fabre at the Royal Museum

12 May 2006 - 3 September 2006 Jan Fabre placed some of his recent sculptures, installations and films next to the icons of
the KMSKA.